w days, she reflected. It looked like some sort of a plan, and
what did Mrs. Easterfield mean by it? She knew the lady of the house
had a very good opinion of the young professor, and that might explain
the invitation at this particular moment, but still it did look like a
plan, and as Olive had no sympathy with plans of this sort she
determined not to trouble her head about it. And to show her
non-concern, she was very gracious to Mr. Lancaster, and received her
reward in an extremely interesting conversation.

Still Olive reflected, and was not in her usual lively spirits. Mr. Fox
said to Mrs. Fox that it was an abominable shame to allow a crowd of
incongruous young men to swarm in upon a country house party, and
interfere seriously with the pleasures of intelligent and
self-respecting people.

That night, after Mrs. Easterfield had gone to bed, and before she
slept, she heard something which instantly excited her attention; it was
the sound of a guitar, and it came from the lawn in front of the house.
Jumping up, and throwing a dressing-gown about her, she cautiously
approached the open window. But the night was dark, and she could see
nothing. Pushing an armchair to one side of the window, she seated
herself, and listened. Words now began to mingle with the music, and
these words were French. Now she understood everything perfectly. Mr. Du
Brant was a musician, and had helped himself to the guitar in the
library.

From the position in which she sat Mrs. Easterfield could look upon a
second-story window in a projecting wing of the house, and upon this
window, which belonged to Olive's room, and which was barely perceptible
in the gloom, she now fixed her eyes. The song and the thrumming went
on, but no signs of life could be seen in the black square of that open
window.

Mrs. Easterfield was not a bad French scholar, and she caught enough of
the meaning of the words to understand that they belonged to a very
pretty love song in which the flowers looked up to the sky to see if it
were blue, because they knew if it were the fair one smiled, and then
their tender buds might ope; and, if she smiled, his heart implored that
she might smile on him. There was a second verse, much resembling the
first, except that the flowers feared that clouds might sweep the sky;
and they lamented accordingly.

Now, Mrs. Easterfield imagined that she saw something white in the
depths of the darkness of Olive's room, but it did not co